Answer
She has rested her head in my lap, and the Godswood around us is buttered up with sunshine.
I braid her hair, but I do not look at her.
I look at the red leaves splashed against a robin's egg sky. I look at the sparrows flitting by. I breathe in the smell of the grass, the blooming rose bushes. I breathe in the scent of Rhaenyra’s skin—dragon scales and silk.
I have rearranged my day to be here with her. I should be in the Sept, praying. Instead, I am here, worshiping all the wrong things.
Like any God, she does not answer my prayers. Like any God, she does not need my devotion.
Rhaenyra shifts against me. She says my name.
I look down at her now, because I have an excuse to stare. And so I stare.
When I look at her, then and only then can I feel my heart beating.
Freckles are dotted across her collarbones like birds upon a branch. Her pulse is a second heart beating inside her neck. The golden fabric of her dress pools around her legs—scraped knees, gossamer ankles, long feet.
Even the daylight loves her. It catches in the pale hairs on her arms and makes her skin sparkle like it is covered in a thin film of crushed glass.
Rhaenyra laughs, and I remember to look at her face.
I blush and wonder if she knows what the redness means.
“Alicent, you have an eyelash on your cheek,” she tells me, giggling still.
I know she is not mocking me, but she is laughing at the heat in my face. Her laughter falls around me like arrows aimed to wound.
“Oh.” I lift a hand to wipe it away.
“Stop,” Rhaenyra says, grabbing my wrist. “Let's make a wish on it.”
I am wound up in a webbing of wishes. I am a fish caught in her net, wishing that she might set me free. I am a fish wishing to die to ensure that she does not go hungry.
I avert my eyes as Rhaenyra reaches for my face. I hold my breath. I do not want her to feel my unsteady breath shake out against her fingers. I don’t want her to get close enough to hear my hammering heart.
I do not want her to know about the secret thing I hold for her inside me. I do not want her to have to pretend that it does not exist.
Rhaenyra’s fingers paint a brushstroke of goosebumps across my cheek. Her green ring sparkles as she holds the question mark of my eyelash aloft.
Her pale brows are raised. “Do not waste it.”
“The wish or the eyelash?” I ask, grinning.
“The wish, you fool.”
She smiles at me, and her lips split. I see her wet teeth, the tongue behind them. Her breath is a breeze that flits across my face. I breathe her breath down. I feel pulled closer to her, tugged along by the undertow of everything I want.
I am aware, suddenly, of how alone we are. Even the sky is empty.
I wish the Gods would avert their eyes, just for the length of a kiss.
I wish she would accept a love like mine.
“You have to make a wish too,” I say, tapping her wrist.
Rhaenyra rolls her eyes without malice. “Obviously.”
I let my finger rest against her wrist and bite my lip so my smile does not spread too quickly. Her pulse bobs against my finger.
“I wish for my father to have the boy he’s always longed for,” Rhaenyra proclaims moodily. “Mother will give birth soon. For the babe’s sake, I hope it is a boy. He will be heir and I will be the spare.”
She is restless. She is jealous. She is trying to be selfless.
“Nonsense. You want a sister,” I burst out. “You’ve always said so.”
Rhaenyra tilts her head closer to me. “I have you. You are my sister.”
But if I am her sister, why does she yearn for her mother to give birth to a daughter? What is missing within me that leaves her wanting?
“Well, I wish that you get a true sister,” I say. “The one you’ve always wanted.”
Before Rhaenyra can protest, I blow the lash away. It lifts from her fingertip and is lost to the whims of the wind.
Rhaenyra looks at me. “You’ve wasted it.”
But she is still smiling. My finger is still against her skin.
Nothing here has gone to waste.
***
She is standing at the base of The Iron throne, and the hour is late. The birds do not sing in the rafters. The long room is lit by moonlight and the air is damp.
I am standing hidden behind a pillar, staring.
There is a flimsy scrap of parchment clenched between my hands. On it, I have written all the words I want to say. I’ve written the speech a thousand times. Each version came out worse, so this is what I have settled for.
I do not wish to frighten you, but I can not stop thinking about you in ways most immoral.
Tell me not to.
Speak it, and force me to forget you.
If this admission ends our friendship, know that it is a cross I have borne before. Feel no guilt.
I have imagined reading this declaration, this question, to Rhaenyra. I have imagined folding the paper and pressing it into her palm. I’ve tried to slide it beneath her door, to hide it beneath her pillow or inside her sleeve.
I have imagined the two ways this confession might go.
Perhaps she will hate what she hears. Maybe she'll spit fire hot enough to flay my flesh from my bones. She will walk away, and I will be burnt—bowed against the ground like a battered beast.
Or perhaps she will confess to similar desires. Perhaps. Perhaps.
Cut me loose, I want to tell her.
Cut me, or pull me closer.
Choose to love me, or choose not to. Just do not let me lurk in your warm shadow for one moment longer.
But as I watch her there with him, I crumple the paper in my fist.
Daemon stands beside her. His dark leathers are oiled so lavishly that they shine like wet leaves. His head is bowed, and his smile is a match to hers.
They whisper in the shadow of all the swords.
Two flesh things, in the shadow of that which was designed to kill them.
I watch Daemon lift something gossamer from his pocket and extend it to her.
Rhaenyra reaches out. She fingers the dark ring he has gifted her and smiles secretly.
Oh, her secret smiles are so sweet. Her lips part like clouds. Her eyes dart to him like shooting stars.
I wish to unknow how it feels to be bewitched by you, I think.
The crumpled paper in my fist makes a crinkling sound as I tuck it into my skirts, but Princess Rhaenyra does not hear it. Neither does Daemon.
I watch him watch her. His eyes are full of a man's hunger—the kind that inspires him to pull the wings from butterflies so that he may keep the pretty appendages for himself.
Rhaenyra shakes her hair back. She lifts her hand and I see the green ring I once gifted her winking at me. Taunting.
She pulls it off and fits Daemon's gift on her finger instead.
I close my eyes. I turn to leave.
Before I've even asked the question, I have her answer.